Hi Ridegback,
Thanks for the extra details, it's appreciated. And, sorry if I sounded
uber-geek ... folks of all proficiency levels are welcome here. As a
professional support person, you are way ahead of most end-users - so hold
your head high :-)
However, I have hit a dead end on the Error 291 message. The Sage Software
guys may be correct that the error is coming from Windows; but if so, it is
an extremely rare and not-well-documented error. Some Windows errors are
very well-known: every PC tech support guy knows "Error 5" (access denied)
and "0xC0000005" (access violation) off the top of their head. But I don't
recall ever seeing an "Error 291". The only reference I can find in the
Microsoft KnowledgeBase is an article about DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange)
between Microsoft Access and Excel in Office 2000:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/210481
If the Sage Software uses Access as a back-end database, or if it uses DDE,
then this may be related. Certainly many applications which use DDE to
exchange data fail on Vista, when they worked on XP (due to tighter
security; DDE is an old and very insecure form of inter-process
communication).
The only other "error 291" I can find in Windows is in Winerror.h (the
source code file which contains all standard Windows error messages):
ERROR_HUNG_DISPLAY_DRIVER_THREAD
# {Display Driver Stopped Responding}
# The %hs display driver has stopped working normally. Save
# your work and reboot the system to restore full display
# functionality.
# The next time you reboot the machine a dialog will be
# displayed giving you a chance to report this failure to
# Microsoft.
# as an HRESULT: Severity: SUCCESS (0), FACILITY_NULL (0x0), Code 0x291
# for hex 0x291 / decimal 657
.... but that doesn't sound like it applies to your problem scenario; I think
it's irrelevant. Likewise, the error 291 in NTStatus.h, which is the source
code file for all NT kernel status codes:
STATUS_PROCESS_NOT_IN_JOB
# The specified process is not part of a job.
I am sure this error does not apply to your scenario; the Sage software
almost certainly does not use the NT Job object (a very obscure feature of
Windows NT).
To investigate further ... well, you could try starting the Sage application
from a command prompt, instead of double-clicking the desktop icon. It might
print some diagnostic messages to the console, which you don't see
otherwise. Or say to the Sage support guys "Okay I acceopt that Error 631
Statement 6130" is a Windows error messge - but what part of Windows does it
come from?" and see if they have any clue.
You can also try checking the Windows Event Log - go to Control Panel,
Classic View, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer, Windows Logs, and check
under Application and System event logs. If there really is any kind of
error at the operating system level (and not just some application-defined
error) then it will probably be logged here. That won't give you an
immediate answer, but it will give you more background information about the
problem to work with.
It would probably be possible to analyse the error by launching the
application in a debugger. This is not as geeky or difficult as it sounds
.... but we'd really need to be sitting in front of the PC together, not
discussing it via a newsgroup. If you have any third-level support in your
organisation, they might have the requisite debugging skills.
At the end of the proverbial day, if Sage say their app doesn't run on
Vista, then it doesn't run on Vista - end of story. You can make a
reasonable effort to get it working; but no-one can give any iron-clad
assurance it's going to ever work, in the absence of vendor support. If all
else fails, install the Sage software on an XP machine instead. If the user
doesn't have a spare PC laying around, they could download and install
Virtual PC from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...c/default.mspx
This is a free add-on for Windows XP and Vista. It lets you run a "virtual"
PC, in a window, on your Vista desktop, so you can have XP and Vista running
at the same time, side by side, on the same machine. After the user installs
Virtual PC, they create a new XP Virtual Machine, and then install the Sage
Software into their Virtual XP PC. Providing a platform for legacy
applications which cannot run on Vista is one of the core scenarios for
Virtual PC: it's designed to handle exactly this task.
Sorry I don't have better info for you , maybe other folks in the newgroup
will have additonal info and ideas. Good luck with it!
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au
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